Attitudes like that are a big reason non-straight marriages are meeting so much resistance in the US. The religious people are freaking out that they're going to have to violate their belief systems to accommodate something they feel is wrong. In America, we have, enshrined in our constitution, freedom of religious belief and practice. The government cannot enact a law that violates the freedom of religious people to believe and act as they see fit, so long as they are not inciting or engaging in violence. That's the way it should be. As Qwerty said, if you don't like something your religion does, get a different religion and go somewhere else. Forcing the issue that religious organizations condone behavior they do not with to condone makes gays, atheists, etc. look bad, and I think the fight should be dropped and let them have their exceptions. I think the exception is a good thing.

Seriously, I'm not playing devil's advocate or anything. I think it's wrong to require people to violate their own non-violent beliefs, even if those beliefs are stupid.

Actually, the US has a very much "give on to Ceasar what is Ceasars, give onto god what is god's" approach to religion. If you don't want to marry gays in your church, don't. Simple. But when you have a couple's night fundraiser open to the public and a gay couple shows up, you HAVE to take their money and let them participate. THAT's what they're afraid of.

Right, or the issue that came up in Kansas, Arizona, and other places, where business establishments don't want to serve gay couples, or at least not for gay events (i.e. photographer happily taking pictures of gay individuals (or maybe even duets), but refusing to participate in a same sex wedding as photographer).

But then it's too close a parallel to segregation laws, and it seems simple to say "we did this already" with the civil rights movement. Granted, it's generally a problem that self-corrects anyway. The photographer who boycotts certain weddings is just going to lose that business, and unless they're really discreet about it, they'll lose the business of straight allies as well.

I think all it takes, though, is a clear distinction of what constitutes a church operating as a religious institution with it's own freedom to define it's marriage ceremonies, or what have you, and it operating as a public space or charity or whatever. In the public operations, like Tedwards second example, I'd think they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate. Or if they want to call anything public and freely open to everyone, like their Sunday Services, those couldn't involve discrimination, though if they wanted to they could just make them private, invite-only churches (see how that works out).

daftbeaker wrote:But if I stop bugging you I'll have to go back to arguing with Qwerty about whether beauty is truth and precisely what we both mean by 'purple'

Any statistical increase in the usage of the emoticon since becoming Admin should not be considered significant, meaningful, or otherwise cause for worry.

The weird thing about those new laws is that in most cases, the people had the right to refuse service to anyone, so getting a law in place to deny gays was redundant. They could just as easily reserved the right to refuse gays and been done with it. Technically speaking, it wasn't about gays either, it was some kind of religious freedom act, and the only group of people that wasn't already constitutionally protected against it were gays.

It always puzzles me when the Christian right (and it is pretty much nearly always them) uses "religious freedom" as an excuse to persecute gay people, given the Bible says something along the lines of "Treat others the same way you want them to treat you".

Unless of course people took that literally and started treating the Christian right the same way they treat gay people e.g refuse them service etc.

No, no, they are treating them how they'd want to be treated. They would want to be discriminated against, because it would help them to stop choosing to be gay.

Unrelated note, there are reason why "Treat people the way they would like to be treated" is a better formulation than "treat others the way you'd like to be treated." Really I suppose a middle road is sort of the ideal, but the point is you really should consider both, since maybe your Hindu neighbors don't want to be drawn out of their non-christian darkness like you would, if you were non-christian (because you totally would be open to another religion proselyting you, right?)

daftbeaker wrote:But if I stop bugging you I'll have to go back to arguing with Qwerty about whether beauty is truth and precisely what we both mean by 'purple'

Any statistical increase in the usage of the emoticon since becoming Admin should not be considered significant, meaningful, or otherwise cause for worry.

Qwertyuiopasd wrote:No, no, they are treating them how they'd want to be treated. They would want to be discriminated against, because it would help them to stop choosing to be gay.

Is that part of the whole "suffering is a good thing" thing that so many religious types seem to go in for? No nookie, no alcohol, no having any fun whatsoever dammit! Thank the FSM for Pastafarianism's lax moral standards!

I don't know about any Pastafarian officiants in the area, but the Universal Life Church offers free ordination to anyone - so there is not reason that if you have a close friend or family member who you would want to officiate at your wedding (I presume it's yours - and congratulations), they could get become ordained. Then you could design the ceremony that you would like (so if you'd like a Pastafarian one, you could).

That would be an option if needed (I'd also suggest posting in the FSM Gatherings section) and seeing if there are any Pastafarians local to you who might be prepared to officiate (again, they could become an licenced Minister via the ULC to make it legal).